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A review by muhly22
Parting the Waters: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement 1954-63 by Taylor Branch
5.0
This is the first of three books on the Civil Rights movement by Taylor Branch, and it is a magisterial opening. I've never really understood the motivations and the difficulties of those who courageously fought for their freedom...without fighting. Nor have I ever felt any kind of sympathy for the movement. Not because I was racist, but because it was never alive for me.
In school, whenever we talked about the movement, it was always a dry collection of people and events - MLK, Rosa Parks, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Birmingham, Medgar Evers, James Meredith, Ole Miss, etc.
All of those are in this book, but Branch doesn't just go through the same old refrain of "segregation is bad, it made blacks second-class citizens, and then they decided to fight back, and a bunch of racist hillbillies acted like monumental jerks, and eventual the good guys won." Instead, Branch brings the movement alive.
For the first time in my life, I found myself wondering whether any of the white men (and women) who engaged in the incredibly racist behavior ever repented, ever felt guilt, for the way they treated fellow human beings.
In school, whenever we talked about the movement, it was always a dry collection of people and events - MLK, Rosa Parks, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Birmingham, Medgar Evers, James Meredith, Ole Miss, etc.
All of those are in this book, but Branch doesn't just go through the same old refrain of "segregation is bad, it made blacks second-class citizens, and then they decided to fight back, and a bunch of racist hillbillies acted like monumental jerks, and eventual the good guys won." Instead, Branch brings the movement alive.
For the first time in my life, I found myself wondering whether any of the white men (and women) who engaged in the incredibly racist behavior ever repented, ever felt guilt, for the way they treated fellow human beings.